1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to materials handling systems and more specifically to correcting dimension values of one or more items therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
Many companies package groups of items together for a variety of purposes, such as e-commerce and mail-order companies that package items (e.g., books, CDs, apparel, food, etc.) to be shipped to fulfill orders from customers. Retailers, wholesalers, and other product distributors (which may collectively be referred to as distributors) typically maintain an inventory of various items that may be ordered by clients or customers. This inventory may be maintained and processed at a materials handling facility which may include, but is not limited to, one or more of: warehouses, distribution centers, cross-docking facilities, order fulfillment facilities, packaging facilities, shipping facilities, or other facilities or combinations of facilities for performing one or more functions of material (inventory) handling. Selecting inappropriate containers in which to package items may increase costs, in terms of container costs, shipping costs, and/or item damage.
Packaging of groups of items may be made more space-efficient when an appropriately sized container is selected based on the total dimensions of the group of items. However, the packing agent may not know the dimensions of each of the items in a group. An agent may instead select a container based on a visual assessment of the items once they are grouped. Using this method, the agent may not be able to select an appropriate container until all of the items in the group have been collected.
A common concern with such groups of items, referred to herein as “item packages,” involves ensuring that appropriate containers are used for shipping them, both to minimize costs and to protect the item contents. The visual method described above may be prone to human error, as an agent may select a container that is too small or that is larger than it needs to be to handle the items. This may result in higher costs associated with using an inappropriate container or in additional costs associated with re-work, in the case that an agent must re-package the items. For example, shipping a group of items in a box that is larger than necessary may result in a higher shipping cost than shipping the same items in a smaller box, due to the cost of the box and/or any higher fees associated with shipping larger or heavier boxes. Similarly, shipping items in a box that is larger than necessary, or not filling each box to capacity, may waste valuable (and expensive) transportation space (e.g., space in a truck or in a shipping container that will be placed on a train or an airplane). In another example, attempting to pack an item in a box that is too small for the item may damage the item and/or may result in re-work if the item (or a group of items that include the item) must be taken out of one box and re-packaged in another (larger) box. Determining appropriate containers for handling items in a materials handling facility is difficult if the sizes of all of the items are not precisely known.
Ensuring appropriate handling of items is made even more difficult in situations in which a company has a very large number of diverse items that may be included in package contents, when the available items can frequently change (e.g., to add new items that become available, as well as to remove discontinued items or items that are otherwise unavailable), when some or all of the available items are provided by third parties (e.g., third-party sellers), and when the items themselves may change over time (e.g., due to a change in the packaging of a particular item and/or changes in the item itself).
One technique that may be used to determine the total dimensions of a group of items is to determine the actual dimensions of each of the items and to mathematically combine them. Vendors of particular items may provide the dimensions of those items when they are shipped to a materials handling facility or may provide this information in a catalog of their products. However, the dimensions provided by a vendor may not be accurate. Therefore, it is common to manually measure items in the materials handling facility as they are received or picked for packing. This results in increased costs and opportunities for human error. Scanning devices, such as a CubiScan™ machine, may be used to measure each item, but these require labor on the part of an agent, again adding costs and further opportunities for error.